Anthony Scaramucci leaves role as US White House communications director after ten days

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

United States president Donald Trump dismissed Anthony Scaramucci from his role as White House communications director yesterday. Scaramucci had only held the position for ten days but had already received criticism after a profanity-laced phone call to a reporter from The New Yorker. President Trump forced Scaramucci’s resignation after his new Chief of Staff, General John Kelly, made the decision, The New York Times reported. General Kelly replaced Reince Priebus who resigned on Friday.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, White House Press Secretary, released a statement after Scaramucci’s dismissal. She said, “Anthony Scaramucci will be leaving his role as White House Communications Director. Mr. Scaramucci felt it was best to give chief of staff John Kelly a clean slate and the ability to build his own team. We wish him all the best.”

Scaramucci was criticised after an on-the-record phone call with New Yorker reporter Ryan Lizza. Scaramucci contacted Lizza after it was reported he was at dinner with Fox News host Sean Hannity and Bill Shine, a former executive also for Fox News. In the phone call, he demanded Lizza reveal who leaked the details of the dinner and suspected Reince Priebus was responsible. He said, “Reince is a fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac”. He went on to mimic Priebus by saying, “Let me leak the fucking thing and see if I can cock block these people the way I cock blocked Scaramucci for six months.” In the same phone call he also criticised White House strategist Steve Bannon. He was quoted as saying, “I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock”.

Huckabee Sanders commented on the phone call in her statement saying, “The President certainly felt that Anthony’s comments were inappropriate for someone in that position and he didn’t want to burden Gen. Kelly also with that line of succession”.

It has been confirmed Scaramucci was not reassigned within the administration. In his resignation Scaramucci reportedly requested to be redeployed to the US’s Export-Import Bank as chief strategy officer. He was previously vice president and chief strategy officer at the Export-Import Bank.

Scaramucci was the third communications director of Trump’s presidency. Michael Dubke resigned from the position in May while former Press Secretary Sean Spicer assumed some of the role.

Before joining the White House, Scaramucci was a Wall Street financier and founded SkyBridge Capital, an investment firm. Though not always a supporter of President Trump, he later advised him during last year’s US presidential campaign. In 2012, he was the national finance co-chair for the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney. Before aligning himself with Trump, he fundraised for the GOP primary campaigns of both Scott Walker and Jeb Bush.

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